Abba Eban Quotes
"If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."
- Abba Eban
(Related: Earth, Israel, Resolution, Vote)
"One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all."
- Abba Eban
(Related: World)
"Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives."
- Abba Eban
(Related: Men, Nations)
"Lest Arab governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss."
- Abba Eban
(Related: Men, Rejection, Routine, Tragedy)
"It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say."
- Abba Eban
(Related: Experience, Leaders, Political leaders)
"Time and again these governments have rejected proposals today - and longed for them tomorrow."
- Abba Eban
(Related: Time, Today, Tomorrow)
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."
- Abba Eban
(Related: History, Men, Nations)
"His ignorance is encyclopedic."
- Abba Eban
(Related: Ignorance)
"Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals."
- Abba Eban
(Related: People)
"Better to be disliked than pitied."
- Abba Eban
"A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement."
- Abba Eban
(Related: Elegance, Flexibility, Will)
"A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually."
- Abba Eban
"You can't achieve anything without getting in someone's way."
- Abba Eban
"I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender."
- Abba Eban
(Related: History, Peace, War, First, Surrender)